Porcelain Doll
by QueenOfHearts1216
Summary: I saw her descend into madness, and I saw her content with that madeness as well. Nothing I could say was going to change that." Riddler/Harley
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: A Riddler/Harley story, because they are my two favorites of the Rogues gallery, and there really aren't that many stories about this particular couple. This story just kinda popped into my head! It will be about three or four parts as of now. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all in this one! Don't sue!

Porcelain Doll Part I

?~?~?

Some men just don't do emotions; well, rather they choose not to show them. I, Edward Nigma was one of those men, preferring puzzles and logic, to love and the inevitable heartache that always ensued after the fact. And sometimes, it would take an attractive girl with curves in all the right places to break past that emotionless exterior.

And if any girl could break down a man's emotional wall, then Harley Quinn was a regular wrecking ball. From the time she started working at Arkham Asylum, Harleen Quinzel captured the eye and affections of her fair share or rogues.

I can still remember the first time I met Miss Quinzel, back before she had put on that dreadful jester costume and makeup. The young, charismatic, and beautiful doctor enchanted many of the inmates, but alienated many of her colleagues. Rumors flew through the Asylum about how she had managed to get her degree, as well as her purpose as to _why_ she was so kind to her "patients." But despite the slander concerning her methods and intentions, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the young psychiatrist.

So naturally, when one of her first sessions was assigned with yours truly, I was more than pleased.

When she entered the room, I almost felt sorry for her. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun, and small oval glasses (that appeared to be completely unnecessary, but who was I to judge?) framed her face, all in a desperate attempt to make herself look older. Sadly, the overall appearance was that of a small child playing dress-up in her mother's closet.

"Hello Edward," She sat down across the table from me. "My name is Doctor Quinzel." Surprising both myself, and the attending guard, she reached across the table to shake my hand. My facial expression must have been quite the site to see, as the guard laughed to himself and nodded, and I took her hand for a quick shake. "What would you like to talk about?"

Most doctors had their own agendas filled with what they wished to uncover, for whatever journal they wished to publish. But this time she was asking what was on my mind?

I spent a majority of that session complaining about how the staff denied me the simple request of a book of crossword puzzles, and the barely edible asylum food. Towards the end however, I threw the young doctor a bone, briefly mentioning a childhood companion of mine Adrian Jameson, just to keep the higher-ups happy. And more importantly to the heads of the Asylum were that I managed to keep my number of cryptic and anagrammed responses down to a minimum.

By the end of that first hour-long session, I was more than intrigued by the young doctor. Her mannerisms were that of a high school prom queen, as opposed to a respectable doctor, with her twirling blonde locks around her finger, and staring intently at me. But somehow, I respected her. She listened, and I began to look forward to our sessions more and more.

However, after a few weeks, Doctor Quinzel seemed more distant, less interested in our chats. In the first two weeks, the guards would have to alert her to when our hour was over, as she would continue to listen to me five, even ten minutes at times, longer as if she truly cared.

(Now please, dear reader, do not think for a moment that I truly believed that the lovely Doctor Quinzel actually cared for me. I'm far from stupid. The doctor most likely appeared to care in order to further her own career, or to gain the respect of her colleagues, but it was nice to think, even for a moment, that a staff at Arkham actually gave a damn about my wellbeing.)

But suddenly, she began to dart out of the room as soon as the hour was up. And even in the midst of the session, she was already elsewhere. It was as if a completely different woman had taken over my case.

Originally, I credited her sudden change in attitude due to loss of interest in myself. But through the Asylum grapevine, I heard that the lovely Doctor Quinzel was rushing off from my therapy sessions to treat the Joker. And suddenly, it all made sense.

It was expected honestly. The Joker creates mayhem and destruction on a regular basis. I was, for want of a more accurate term, tamer.

Her personality suffered a major change as well. She became more irritable, snapping at both guards, and me, for fairly innocent questions and comments.

She also was more distant. Doctor Quinzel would bite on the end of her pen, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere on the ceiling and her brightly colored heels were constantly tapping against the floor. Where she was once full of life, she was now fading away.

"Doctor?" I had attempted to pull her back one time.

"What?" After a moment, surely taken to realize I was addressing her, she shot back her response; she was once again chewing on the end of her pen.

"I apologize for my asking, but you seem distracted lately." I folded my hands on the table, "Is everything alright?"

My expressing concern would have excited most doctors, making their faces light up, and pens race across notebooks about my supposed "emotional development."

But Doctor Quinzel was not pleased. Her eyes narrowed. "It would be very unprofessional of me to divulge the details of my personal life to a patient." She stressed the word _patient._

To this day, I still could not tell you why I said what I responded with. I was more than aware that it would have repercussions. "Which leaves me to wonder how much you have shared with the Joker," and I instantly regretted my words. Her blue eyes widened behind her glasses. But I kept going. "It must have been quite a bit to warrant Dr. Otanti to scold you." And to top it all off, I mocked her with Asylum gossip. This situation alone proves my insanity. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

She raised an eyebrow at me, grinning slightly. "Guards?" Her voice was much softer here, "Mr. Nigma is being quite cheeky today." My jaw dropped as I was suddenly being yanked from my chair by two burly security guards. "A bit of solitary should straighten him out." If I remember correctly, at this point she was full on grinning.

I felt the prick of a needle at my arm, and slowly everything became clouded. I took one last look at Harleen Quinzel and grinned.

I guess I struck a nerve.

?~?~?

Adrian Jameson is an OC from my other Riddler story entitled Remorse.  
Anyways, as always, reviews are much appreciated! Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thank you for your patience with me! I promise that I will be updating more often from now own, things have been pretty crazy lately (but I guess that how life goes…)

Anyways, this probably won't be to accurate to cannon, but again, this is Fanfiction, and is my take of it. :D Any errors, inconsistencies, or the like are mine and mine alone.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harley, Eddie-kins, or anything you recognize.

Enjoy :)

?~?~?

Porcelain Doll Part II

?~?~?

I suppose that was the last I ever saw of Doctor Quinzel. As while I spent my week counting ceiling tiles, the dear doctor spent hers spiraling down into madness.

Following the events that ensued; I was able to gather a bit of the details from Jervis Tetch. After trying to decipher Jervis' Wonderland-esque babble for some time, I understood that the Joker had attempted to escape once again, as he did several times a month. But this time, his attempt was greatly unsuccessful, as he was brought back the next day by the Bat, beaten into a bloody bruised pulp.

Doctor Quinzel (The Red Queen!) apparently had not taken this well; she had cradled the broken clowns head in her lap, waiting for the Arkham medics to arrive. Why no one cared to notice to what extent she was disturbed by this scene never ceases to amaze me. As some carefully placed sympathy and possibly a hug could have saved Gotham quite a bit of trouble.

The real excitement, however, occurred the day I was returned to my cell. Having just awoken from my sedative induced daze, I was thrown into my usual cell in the High-Security wing. The usual calmness that swept over the Asylum past 11 o clock had set in, except for occasional murmured death threat and muffled screams.

Until the bomb went off of course.

I remember the entire building shaking violently, debris flying by the window of my cell, screams from other inmates. After the explosion subsided, besides occasional moans from other inmates, the only audible noise over the alarms was a high pitched cackle. The Joker had escaped yet again.

Around an hour or so later, the guards were bringing someone else in. By the look of her singed eyebrows and bandaged hands, she had been fairly closes to the explosion. As she approached my cell, I recognized the screaming woman to be my dear doctor, and the utter gravity of the situation became apparent to me.

My shattered window allowed me to hear perfectly the screams and threats being uttered by the (former, I assumed) psychiatrist. "Let me go, ya big brute!" She was screaming into the guard on her left's ear. "I need to-" Harleen stopped mid-sentence, catching my eye. "Take a picture Eddie-kins, it'll last ya longer!" She winked cheerily, despite her current predicament and erupted into a bit of giggles that could surely rival the Joker, as the guards tossed her into a nearby cell.

And thus, Harley Quinn was born.

?~?~?

For a month or so, no one heard of saw the former Doctor, besides the solitary confinement guards I suppose, but she was never too far from my thoughts. The look in her eyes as she was dragged from the debris surrounding what was formerly the Joker's cell was etched into my mind. Curse you, photographic memory. I feared for Harleen, I feared that she had lost it. If you have it, you fear losing it, if you lose it, you never realize it. What is it?

Sanity. Something that many of us, here in Arkham, rarely think about or even miss. I find myself carefully toeing the line between sanity and insanity, actually. I am just aware enough to notice the flaws of those around me, but not enough to do anything about my own problems.

But Doctor Quinn, it appeared, had jumped right off the deep end into the bottomless pit of insanity, so it was no surprise to me when she appeared in the common room, dressed in the signature orange Arkham garb; she honestly was not the first of Arkham's own to go the wrong way.

What did surprise me of her sudden appearance in the common room, is that she strode right over to the couch where I had been at, curled up with a nice crossword puzzle and a blunt piece of charcoal, and took a seat at my side.

"Hiya Ed!" She exclaimed, resting her chin in her hand, looking up at me with orb-like blue eyes. Besides the glossy, gleaming eyes, she looked quite pale, her eyes sunken in. It was apparent that the month of so of solitude had taken a toll on the youthful doctor. I was caught off guard; I had assumed that the two of us were not on speaking terms based on our last few meetings.

"Erm, hello Miss…." I then realized that I wasn't quite sure what to call her. I knew Jonathan preferred to be called Doctor, but then Jervis preferred plain old Jervis… I pondered for a moment, not wanting to be the first to discover whether she was an angry inmate or not.

"Call me Harley," She giggled, answering my ponderings. "Like the bike!" She stifled laughter at her own joke.

"Charming," I smiled briefly, and returned to my puzzle. I made my hypothesis that she was more or less silly crazy, not violent crazy.

"We ain't got no harsh feeling right Ed?" She suddenly said. I remember looking up at this point, and expecting her cheery smile, but instead being greeted with a nervous grimace, the girl biting at her lower lip.

"What ever do you mean, my dear?" She twitched her nose ever so slightly and glanced casually over her shoulder.

"Some of the other… uh… inmates don't like me too much." Her eyes lingered somewhere behind us, before darting back to meet mine. "They don't like that I used to be a doc…"

I looked over to where she kept glancing as nonchalantly as I could. It only took me a second to realize who she was talking about. Green skin gleaming, in what little sunlight was allowed through the heavily barred prison windows, Pamela Isley, also known as Poison Ivy, was scowling at her prison-mates.

"Oh Harley, you can't take Pamela's attitude personally… she has a certain… distaste for people." Harley's face turned to a mild pout.

"It's not just her Ed! Allota 'em don't seem to like me…" She sighed, "I wish Mistah J was here…"

I almost laughed right there. Never in my entire existence as a rogue had I heard someone wish for the Joker's presence. But seeing the tears welling up in her eyes, I was as comforting as I could manage. "Erm, its okay Harley… He'll be back here soon enough."

Those were obviously not the words she wanted to hear, as she let out a muffled scream into the shoulder of my orange jumpsuit. "But Ed, I don't want him to be here." She sobbed. "I want to be out there with him!" She sniffled.

"Then break out…" I said shrugging my shoulders.

At my words, she lit up like someone had just flipped the on switch. "You can just do that?"

"Of course love," I said as if I were the master of breakouts (even if it was more of the opposite… I hadn't had a successful break out in about six months!). I lowered my voice "You fake some sort of medical woe, they send in a nurse, and you overpower them and soon… you're free!"

"Thank you Eddie!" She squealed and hugged me, catching me very off guard.

I honestly never expected Harley to get out of her cell, being such a newcomer to the world of rogue-hood. But at around midnight that very night, the alarms of Arkham went off, and through my sliver of a window I heard Harley's signature cackle.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Things have been insane lately, And there honestly wasn't a day where I didn't think about posting on this, and I'm so sorry it took so long for this part! This took me about 2 hours to write, and then 3 months to edit and tweak sadly. Hopefully you enjoy! Please forgive me for my terrible author-ship.

Also, I promise that the next chapter will be up in a timely manner, and will be much more exciting than this one. This is some of a filler before the real good stuff, which is why it took me so long to do.

Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own Harley, or Eddie-kins, or anything else you may recognize. I don't make any money off this, and this is all for fun!

Porcelain Doll Part III

?~?~?

Arkham Asylum kept rogues like the Joker kept henchmen; usually not for more than a month or two. But for an inexperienced inmate like Harley to make an escape, on her first try, no less; it was simply unbelievable! It was a riddle in its own.

My fellow rogues were also quite fascinated with the former doctor's successful escape; as much of the lunchtime gossip was fixated on the blonde bombshell.

"But where would she go?' Jonathan mused, moving his Asylum excuse for food around his plate carelessly. "It's not like she would be free to roam the streets now that she's considered to be one of the criminally insane…"

"_Curiouser and curiouser!_" Jervis piped up, somewhat exuberantly, his deep adoration for Asylum gossip ever apparent.

"She probably left town by now." Harvey's low growl caused the rest of the table to go silent. "The kid snapped… and she probably snapped back; needed a new start…" He shoveled a bit of the colorless matter into his mouth.

I couldn't help but shake my head at these words. "No offense Harvey, but you didn't even have a conversation with the girl. She seemed truly deranged…" Those glossy blue eyes; high pitched cackle… I shivered. It didn't appear to me that she had just "snapped."

"Alright…" As usual, Harvey rolled his eyes in my general direction. "When it comes to women Ed-"

A sultry laugh came from the other end of the table; a laugh that could only be produced by the green-skinned seductress herself. "Harvey, I don't think you'd know any better on womanly matters than Eddie would…" Pamela Isley pushed her plate away and stood up, approaching our end of the table. She placed one delicate green tinted hand on Harvey's shoulder.

"Boys, she left here to go look for The Joker. So either she's still out there looking for him, or she's found him. And if she's found him… it's impossible to think she's still alive." Her last few words were practically dripping with venom (the metaphorical soft of course, but when it comes to Pamela, I feel obligated to specify). And with that, she whipped around and stormed off. The table fell silent at the utter blatancy of Pamela's remark. Most of us had been thinking something similar, but no one had wanted to say it.

Jervis looked down sadly, "_Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast…_" I shook my head at his sad optimism, and continued to pick at my lunch.

***

After several weeks, talk of the former doctor Harleen Quinzel and her surprising escape began to die down. However, pathetic as it was, the blonde doctor was never too far from my thoughts. I found myself paying careful attention to Gotham Nightly News and skimming the daily paper that was allowed in the rec-room for any signs of her, but with no success.

But one thing that Edward Nigma most certainly was (and still is) is stubborn, so I continued my media search for Miss Quinzel. One particular day, I sat down just in time for the gossip portion of the nightly news and found myself surrounded by my fellow rogues. You see, the gossip portion of the nightly news contains a very… intriguing segment about the inmates at Arkham, their whereabouts, and what they're currently up to. It's very rarely accurate, but almost always serves as a good laugh (for most of us anyway, Killer Croc is still a tab bit sore about the allegations that his skin condition that gave him his namesake is nothing but a back case of eczema, so he usually spends this time moping in the corner.)

"And now I'm going to hand it over to our Gossip Reporter Maria Valdez for the latest happening of our infamous Gothamites." Valerie Reilly smiled a toothy smile, almost reminiscent of a certain Clown Prince of Crime...

Before I could shake the thought, the scene changed to a busty, fair-skinned brunette, who may be able to attribute her television success to her… erm… _assets_ more than actual reporting skill. But regardless, she began her segment with the goings-on of Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, Prince of Gotham, who is seen with this international supermodel, and that Russian ballerina…

"This leads me to our most popular gossip segment, here at Gotham Evening News, Asylum Insider!" Valerie Reilly smiled, ruffled her papers and took a deep breath. "It has been reported that Jervis Tetch, also known as the Mad Hatter, has recently gotten a hold of the first of the Harry Potter series. It has been speculated that Tetch will soon be changing his M.O. to that of Lord Voldermort." (Jervis giggled from behind the couch, _"Oh dear!"_) "More interestingly though is the recent sightings of a new henchgirl in Gotham seen in the company of none other than the Joker himself!"

I'm assuming my jaw dropped at this point, as this was the reaction of every other person in the room, guards included. The screen changed from the background to a still shot, most likely taken off a security camera, of Harleen Quinzel in a full body, skin-tigbt Jester costume, complete with a face full of pasty white makeup and a black domino mask.

A part of me was in sheer disbelief that this could possibly be the former doctor. I mean, there are always young women who find themselves in a bit of a tight spot and wind up getting dragged the life of a henchgirl; it happens all the time. But another photo, a close up this time proved me wrong. Behind the makeup were the same crystal blue eyes that had fixed themselves on mine that day in the rec-room.

"_The Red Queen_!" Jervis exclaimed, his voice full of mild adoration.

Pamela was quiet for a chance. Green eyes fixed on the screen, one eyebrow cocked disapprovingly. She retreated back to an overstuffed arms chair perched beneath the Arkham excuse for a window, determined to soak up the last few rays of sun before nightfall.

A part of me wanted to know why she was so angered by Miss Quinzel's transformation of sorts, but I suppressed the urge to ask, as Pamela is known for her temper, I do so enjoy having the ability to breathe. "Disgusting…" She whispered just barely audible. I returned my eyes to the screen, back to the photo of Harley on the scream, her jester costume fitting perfectly, clinging to her every curve. _Disgusting indeed,_ I scoffed to myself.

***


End file.
